James Autio

James D. Autio (Ojibwe) is a poet and visual artist in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His poems have appeared in online and print journals, including North American Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Ditch, Poemeleon, Drunken Boat, Naugatuck River Review, and many others. As an artist, Autio works in drawing, painting, sculpture, digital photography/video, and traditional Ojibwe arts.

Photo by VIKI EAGLE

james d. autio

Our Familiar Faces

Tap his eye with my fire axe. I did this to.Sucked that was inverted to measure thistransparent prickle. Made strut a lonely girlcome and when we met when it rained in wemet in rain. When alone we met who greetto emulate turns. Linger along an elaboratepackaging has mulled the peaches of theirforgotten turns. That when to contemplatea tangled bonnet, attracted my window thatbosom stood offstage for my slinky effort.At maybe better brought from a thereminoutage my tongue sprang and so I believethere did become a newer color. Within thatruin cleansed the body fuzz up in its fallenform and begin to murk among a relativity.We left via this cobbled through to draftedintaglio imagery where saw sparrow into analien community the glass figure possessedby a twisters edge. The heavens are windingdown at this judgment recycling. At this mypeculiar wasteland is poised to be righted to.

Still the Voice

Not though as we go in slow movementsand cosmos there is a more strict undertaking.It is elusive and we suspect at account into myselfand many times of a solid soul cover to recast

with might vision cleaving there may be hitherand given toward continual ascent. Our saviorlatent by intelligent growth, aspire the hectic brood.Of a flash of modern grandeur and dry it seems,

even the tiniest silent subtle to jet blood to a gleamgain. Whatever sights by token as we behelda benign adoration where nothing felt to bundlesuch and with a mournful gaze. Which the picket

what came to us as a superb message of great gall.We’re turn single. We’re copious lull. In advancefoundational to ardent whimper on the same thisstrained inertia capable of drawn teeming.

The rich timbre. In the past a tremulous hat, soliquid the rapture again distilled to a deep absorbstain. We watch the darken. We’re in deafen tenor,the memory of the glorious year. We flit and are

borne as pure ghost vapor play and bone bangson the nature of suffuse a soften cherry decorum.

Sky People

Whom confined had burst outand was but to crawl awayof the part lifted and stillchasing the storm high overheadwith such furious faces glareon the thicken plate and tothe edge of a plenty prettybonnet of the sound broughtall living of the sound sphereatop such a wondrous pikeand fine approach than all bridlea fetching thigh of pass overhead then all the other livingand amass around an atmospherechasm to bring about a return ofsuch sky people as had plain hatthe fickle warrant for variantshad the plummet flight takenpleasance the flown palaceas stretch the brittle blue skyand ascend as a colonnade touchand brighten to the stratosphericlistening hushes. Breathe.

Drowning While Another Looks On

By what sheer crepes under moonlight buckledto our swift frenzy as had it crested. Each pulse soar through these linger lips surely persuasive.More beautific balls that being uneven surround us and the hooves aura. Where had we taken tounless they held each to a warm hand pushing vague isolations. It all returns to being, skirtsrise on the breeze echoes. What just shifted over went longer to the pressures generated by enoughfriction. In momentum is each a soothing splash.

Hedge the Oceans

Joint holes crackle. Some hollow part are held.Here is the lasting tenant mom unlit. She curedthe vandals. Were bored the illicit brides. Pawndaughter brined and blusher bought. Pull of thisbrutal cardigan. Here’s a blight in amongst thesefrantic brambles. Add toxin whether dissolvedto a porter side then foam than in layers of slip.Form light and flask. Duffed the freckled face.Should brisk to smoke out her lip rim. Bottomof the brass and a walking stick. Just and onlythose intimations that the drunken squall salver.Cast down no lot busked for a cobble fit. Whichwere meant jig barred. Clenched were creak onhabitual joists. This slope driven. Filaments arequivering. There are layers of all in this. Oceansfestooned. Went to droop over each a sleepingdescent. There are still rockets. Still lotus leavesin the cheese and apple spring tray. In the breadof joy yet proofed. She held her smoke blooming.Planked by the motion and the nurse hinge onlyone back snap. Mid point past a bog and bench.

Folded Cloth is Under

On a hem line. Hem that the storage pull. Swornin the moon hem that fell.

Before the gentle path. That to each a breathe bartered.Though hemmed to show

a curt mirror. Hemmed beneath. Fathom then the meadow.Touching to made iron moan.

Under exotic shroud. The slow hem a bonny plow.Crust a bounce a singing caul

and its slick shine. Hem left. Hem of this caul hedge.Proceed of being on a wing.

She bared the crooked hem. That her dress cupped out.Buttermilk in her fur shape

and becoming joyful. Tackle that hem into thismorning mist. Been forgot to.

Forgot that she seen again between hemmedcause and her cloak askew.

In Union with Time Fold

I would have thought the brave sun.Passion sighs out of a dream clot. Theysing of a flow of time will resume putof dawn and the wolf of the wombas though having brought haste untilits silents converge. What fell betweenrock harden and soft cycles of bentfolds over emblem. Has purged of thisimminent solitude. I suck like juicesfrom the fruit. Nourished to beautifulto day that brief nerves descend. Thatdenied rain to me skein sacredly andthe pearls been scattered along a silkenmesh. Let put to my mouth my tonguesdefiant. There might oblige of each apassable consciousness. Describe thiscommon world daydream even as mereinstinctual quality. Silent grace. Mustone forgotten monarch with butterflyhair like a shaven blush slipping so easyso natural through a fresh buttonhole.There too into a peaceful simplicity itmoves in smoke of my body becoming.

Beacon the Nested Doll

In magnetic fields the soft echo answersand I have heard that irresistible croon.The bride body remains untouched. Thatextended along milky slips with fingersto disturb the gentle edge. Began a slumpof my useless pawing and wept but forwhat of my purest sibilance jutted out tosilence spaces, to fire amazed cup herdingthat danced by my despair. There remainsin those magnetic field stations a bottomblossom turning. Those spirits pull me intotiny cups. Each of me sloughs aside at thisextension slide hung subject to tremblingimages of me birthed again unto a softerelocution. I remember the brighter worldbrought out before the smaller frail. Therea thinner doll at all those inner layers. Thereperch shadows of each shed skin, even mirth.

When First Reawaken

This pure dream. This narrow sea. Thisrising tide pleased but for the lifted hull.Forgiven this stubborn grief, this wastedspace. How fair the flaunt musing. Thisis a sailor draught. Meant under morningdoor. No bower wrenched a gateway ballthat laid out plush pour before the prow.Scuttled by the bastion looming. This isbubbled underneath tender beacon formswithin the pleasured mind. Endured thisslipping caul, what that sat unto. This isan awful sense creeping. We that divinedgentle become a pure dream but in song.

At this Transport Plain

Magical breath. The rock is magnetic and without waste. Before long the otherhidden face surfaces, its nerves being. In a flash the followers cave. Believe inthis. Act about ideal aims. Yet does true revolution of the human body has as everchanged. To make manifest a molecular drama unfold. Does not want of the push.Which salve is fostered even of inflected definitive, outside influence bent physicsis came apart. A tension bind is forced from which changes pull out from organicschisms this transport plain. Had got angles much beside this with even odd inquisitiverabble who chant of arisen cosmic stations. It is here that is to be recognized of all thenthat is made visible and changes before us.